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Reviewers Choice Award

Until We Are Gone

Sofia Aldinio | Mexico

An aerial view of San Jose de Gracia - a community nestled in the middle of the Pacific coast of Baja California, Mexico, July, 2021. The community claims that it was founded 200 years ago, but today there are only 21 members living there full time. As with many other small communities, water is the reason why they are able to settle and live in their surroundings. However the rainy season has shifted, leaving their community without a waterfall flowing off the canyon as one used to.

Until We Are Gone is an ongoing photography project documenting how climate change is uprooting small, inland and coastal communities in Baja California, Mexico, that depend directly on natural resources to survive and thereby threatening cultural heritage.

The peninsula is facing stronger hurricanes, changes in precipitation patterns and streamflow, loss of vegetation and soils and negative impact on fisheries and biodiversity. It's estimated that in Mexico and Central America, 3.9 million people will be forced to leave their homes due to climate change. 

Photographed in four different communities across the peninsula, the work aims to document the tension of the communities whose cultural heritage is at risk, add a new perspective on the exciting reports on climate change and migration and start a conversation about how the loss of collective memory has a direct impact on the mental health of the next generation.

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